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a.m & p.m.

Here is the direct link to the story (that’s my photo!!) on NPR’s music blog, “The Record” : http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2010/08/20/129326440/olympia-wash-why-here-why-now

Northern opened unofficially in April, 2009 just in time for Arts Walk and officially hosted its first shows in mid-May. The project has been a huge undertaking and I think it’s safe to say it has been extremely rewarding for everyone involved, even through shows where no one showed up, volunteers flaked out and people accidentally destroyed art on the walls.

I’m proud to be a part of the project and my teenaged self thanks me, even if no one else does.

Partial screen shot:

It’s been a bit of  a bummer summer for me here in the Pacific Northwest. The chilly, dismal weather throughout much of June and July definitely affected my overall mood, in addition to a couple failed job searches and house drama. Now that August has brought hot, sunny weather to Olympia, I’m busy finishing teaching my summer class and frantically preparing lesson plans for the fall quarter. Throughout the upcoming academic year, I will be teaching three classes each quarter on two different campuses while still acting as the technician for the printmaking studio half time. Yes, I am crazy. However for the next 10 months, I am planning on saving  approximately 50% of my income for Future Plans, come hell or high water.

I’m also planning monthly adventures to preserve my sanity during the school year. The first adventure is a road trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico to attend Tamarind Institute’s Fabulous at Fifty Symposium and Conference. Long time readers and friends know how much I absolutely ADORE New Mexico. As excited as I am for the conference, I’m more excited to spend some time driving through the desert. I’ll be camping along the way which means stargazing galore! I hope to be on the road for a week and a half or so, and when I return to Olympia, it’ll already be advising week for the new campus gig. October, November and December’s adventures have yet to be determined, but a holiday in Buffalo with family is in the works as well as a relaxing long weekend at Breitenbush Hot Springs in Oregon. February brings the annual CAA conference in New York City, which will undoubtedly be amazing and re-energizing (couches, friends?). March is a friend’s wedding in Death Valley, California – another weekend of desert camping.

Ultimately all these mini-trips will lead up to a (hopefully) month long adventure in Peru next summer, the main destination being Machu Picchu. I have never traveled out of the country (with the exception of Canada and we all know that doesn’t count). Machu Picchu has always fascinated me; the images of the ancient Incan ruins located on an artificially terraced mountain side look like something I could only have imagined in dreams. I am currently looking for interested traveling buddies, so if you’re interested in spending time in Peru, you know where to reach me.

In the meantime, Little Wings at Northern. Man, I love Little Wings. Album recommendation of the day: Light Green Leaves.

I’m finally uploading images of the opening for Better Place Than Now from a little over a month ago. The show was a total success and it’s just the beginning for the body of work I’m currently researching, “Dead Wrestlers.” The awesome Conor Peterson also showed his large format photographs of quiet, desolate yet developed landscapes.

Me: Digital prints and drawing. The prints are highly pixelated, online video grabs, so they look slightly out of focused when photographed. The drawing of Miss Elizabeth is the first layer of a hand-drawn CMYK pattern. The image is from wrestling trading cards I collected as a kid in the mid 80s – early 90s. You can read more from an earlier post.

Conor Peterson: archival inkjet prints from large format negatives.

The Opening: Friends, food and fun!

Conor, gesticulating wildly with a snappy red tie.

Sarah and Kira, and Brian mid-chew.

As I contemplate living in Washington another year, my sixth, I can’t help but think about ideas of history and place.

The house I currently live in was constructed in 1908. Throughout the 1920s and into the early 60s, it served as a dormitory for Catholic nuns trained as nurses who tended the sick and infirm at St. Peter’s Hospital, located across the street. The original St Peter’s hospital was founded in 1887 by Mother Joseph of The Sacred Heart, one of the many Catholic funded hospitals and schools she founded that helped settle and establish the west. In 1919, however, the original hospital was forced to relocate to make way for the new Capitol Campus. St Peter’s was rebuilt with state of the art technology and again opened its doors to the people of Olympia in 1927. St. Pete’s served as a bastion of hope through the dark days of the Great Depression, both World Wars and the turmoil of Vietnam. In the mid-70s, the hospital was incorporated into one of the first and largest state-wide health collectives in the nation, Group Health, and opened a new facility on the outlying eastern border of the city, where I receive the majority of my health care as an employee of the state.  The old St Pete’s building across the street now houses a multitude of efficiency apartments.

My house, the nuns’ dormitory, was purchased in the late 70s by a group of young, visionary radicals anxious to partake in co-housing social experiments of the time; it has existed as a collective since: The Alexander Berkman Collective, or the ABC House. In the infinite wisdom of the generations of hippies, eco-terrorists, musicians, artists, anarchists and political organizers whom lived under this roof over the years (or hid in the basement), the original floral pattern wallpaper throughout the house was not allowed to be painted over. The wallpaper is hand screen-printed, a technique that went out of fashion in the 1940s. Although the paper is yellowed with age, scuffed, cracked and stained, I know this pattern of large, colorful flowers I look at every morning and every night is the same embellished bouquet that has been gazed upon every morning and every night for at least the last 70 years. There’s a certain kind of comfort there, found in the intersection of history, place and one’s small contribution to each in the appreciation of details.

Saturday, I drove to the coast to spend the day on my favorite sandy Washington beach, Copalis. Only in Washington is it acceptable to wrap yourself in a sleeping bag while lounging on your beach blanket. At the end of a long afternoon napping in the dunes, I went beachcombing. After stumbling across a magical abandoned sandcastle, I found the most amazing seashell along a lonely stretch of surf.

Saturday started off with Shipwreck Day, a huge outdoor junk sale that spans the streets of downtown Anacortes. I bought a cedar stump cub head that was made with a chainsaw by this fellow. I was his first sale of the day. The cub was $15 dollars. The thought of my parents opening up their gift in the mail: priceless.

In the early afternoon, a group of increasingly sunburned kids decided to visit nearby Deception Pass, the bridge that connects Whidby Island to Fidalgo Island. To say it was beautiful would be an understatement. I want to go camping here in the fall.

From there, it was a short ride to take in the view from Mt. Erie…

Washington is fucking breathtaking. But then you get weird shit like this:

That night was the final Port Warehouse show. I was mostly excited to see Karl Blau, and I was not disappointed. This was easily the most memorable set I’ve seen him play over the last few years. LAKE was his backing band.

On Sunday morning, I woke up at 6:53 AM. I was immediately awake and there was little hope of falling back asleep. Therefore, I decided to go for a lone drive, exploring Anacortes. I followed the coast line through town, ultimately ending up at jaw dropping Washington Park. The Fog was thick and the salty spray of Puget Sound gave me the distinct impression of Autumn.

View of the bluff from the beach…

The edge of the world…

The view of the ocean from the bluff…

On the way back downtown, I came across this incredible sight. Apparently, decades ago, a Croatian sailor decided to create a marina by dredging the bottom of the cove out and placing it in an old grounded cargo vessel. Birds soon inhabited the man-made island, dropping seeds into the soil, over time creating a small forest.

I was back in time for the final Sunday afternoon show in the park, then headed home to Olympia in time for a later dinner and an early bed time.

What the heck.

What The Heck? Fest 2010 marked the 9th year of the festival and my second year of attendance.  Anacortes is a beautiful, sleepy little town and this year I was able to explore the island a bit. I plan on visiting at least once more before summer ends. An extra special extended photo essay, divided in two parts:

What The Heck 2010, Part 1

The festival began with a long, meandering walk through Anacortes, stopping in front of various businesses and street corners, finally ending up at the marina. “The Friendship Trail” featured 20+ performers singing a couple songs, introducing their music to the masses.

Markly Morrison of LAKE and Skrill Meadow

Karl Blau

The crowd at the Marina

After The Friendship Trail, there was a dinner show and then, later in the evening, the first Port Warehouse Show.

D+, the ultimate Anacortes super group featuring Phil Elverum (Mt. Erie), Bret Lunsford (Beat Happening) and Karl Blau opened the warehouse show. They’re also the awesome organizers of the event. I camped on Bret’s lawn again, as far away from the goats as possible– I learned my lesson from last year! (baby goats sound like wailing babies in the morning).

Broken Water played an early set, finally chasing away the last remnants of my folk doldrums. Broken Water is probably the most exciting band in Olympia right now, for me at least. You really should give them a listen.

LAKE (featuring my housemate Andrew on bass guitar) played later that night and finally got all the kids dancing.

Phil Elverum, one of the main organizers of the festival, rounded out the night with hauntingly beautiful Mount Erie

And Friday night ended with a lovely sunset/ moon rise over the docks.

I found this drawing some time ago on the sidewalk downtown. It might have been outside of Northern. The place escapes me. I’ve had it pinned to my bulletin board for months.

Today, I share it with you.

Off to What The Heck Fest, my unofficial beginning of summer and the official start of my 11 day vacation.

The drawing and print series I’m currently working on is titled “Dead Wrestlers.” At Northern this month, I’m showing an in-progress body of work consisting mostly of digital prints. I’ll be posting those images, photos of the opening and updating my website in the next few weeks. Here is the statement I wrote for the series, including scans of photographs I took in 1989 at my very first World Wrestling Federation event.

Statement:

“There are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque.”  – Roland Barthes

“The biggest thrill in the world is entertaining the public, there is no bigger thrill than that.”  – Vince McMahon, Chairman and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment

The first fan letter I ever wrote was to Hulk Hogan in 1987. I was 8 years old. In return, I received an autographed postcard with a photograph of Hulk on the front. I was soon sending weekly letters to “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, “Andre The Giant,” Jake “The Snake” Roberts, “Ravishing” Rick Rude, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, “Miss Elizabeth,” “Mr. Perfect” and Bret “The Hitman” Hart. Usually I would include one of the myriad drawings on lined paper I sketched of the superstar, with scribbled notes exclaiming how much I loved them, what I thought of their matches and how much I hated their enemies. I attended my first WWF wrestling card in 1989 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo, NY. Somehow, my father was able to get floor seats only a few rows from ringside. Between cheering for the good guys and booing the bad, I stood on my seat, a metal folding chair, and took photographs, occasionally scurrying to the front row to get better shots. Those photographs are pictured below.

As I grew older and realized wrestling was scripted, I drifted away from the squared circle, occasionally checking in on the happenings of the WWF as I passed through high school and into college. In 2003 however, a series of wrestling deaths rocked the newly christened WWE universe – “Mr Perfect” Curt Hennig, “Miss Elizabeth” Hulette and “Road Warrior Hawk” Michael Hegstrand all died due to steroid and drug induced heart attacks. “The British Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith had succumbed to the same fate a year earlier at the age of 39. “Ravishing” Rick Rude had passed in 1999 at the age of 40 due to overdose drug-induced heart failure. André “The Giant” René Roussimoff, a famous drunkard, died in 1993 at the age of 46 of a heart attack. The list of deaths directly related to steroid and drug abuse keeps on growing: “Bam Bam” Scott Bigelow, age 45; “Demolition Crush” Brian Adams, age 44; “Sensational Queen Sherri” Martel, aged 49; Eddie Guerrero, age 38; “The Big Boss Man” Ray Taylor, age 41; “Hercules” Hernandez, age 46. This list is by no means complete; by some estimates, more than 100 professional wrestlers under the age of 50, from one time superstars to hopeful jobbers, have died in the past 15 years due to anabolic steroid and other drug abuse related causes. The mortality rate of professional wrestlers is seven times higher than the general U.S. population. They are 12 times more likely to die from heart disease than other Americans aged 25 to 44. Professional wrestlers are about 20 times more likely to die before 45 than pro football players.

This ongoing series of drawings and digital prints simultaneously mourn and celebrate those wrestling superstars who succumbed to early deaths directly related to steroid and drug abuse. Enlarged, highly pixelated, digital abstract prints of captured online video stills represent matches considered by wrestling commentators as career-defining moments for each deceased wrestler. The pixelated, oblique boxes of color portray a contrived reality, recognizable only at a distance, underscoring the spectacle of sports entertainment and our supporting-role relation as consumers to it.

Photos, 1989 :

WWF in Buffalo, NY  – February 13, 1989 at The Buffalo Memorial Auditorium
Attendence: 10,207
Card:
-Sam Houston pinned Barry Horowitz
-Boris Zhukov pinned Tim Horner
-Outlaw Ron Bass pinned Koko B. Ware
-Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard (The Brain Busters) defeated Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty (The Rockers)
-Ravishing Rick Rude (died at age 40 of drug related heart failure) pinned Tito Santana
-Big John Studd (died at age 47 of liver cancer) fought Akeem to a double count-out
-WWF World Champion Macho Man Randy Savage defeated WWF IC Champion the Ultimate Warrior via count-out at 5:09

Akeem “The African Dream”

Akeem vs. Big John Studd

Ravishing Rick Rude vs Tito Sanatna

The Ultimate Warrior (and my favorite ref Earl Hebner)

“Macho Man” Randy Savage